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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639973">Edythe Kaspbrak Gets a Haircut</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/onierokinetic/pseuds/onierokinetic'>onierokinetic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff, Mike Bill and Stan don't really show up but they're girls too I promise, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Soft Eddie Kaspbrak, Soft Richie Tozier, fem!Eddie Kaspbrak, fem!Losers Club, fem!Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:54:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639973</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/onierokinetic/pseuds/onierokinetic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, Bev,” Eddie greets, a rare peaceful smile gracing her face.</p>
<p>“Your hair,” Bev says reverently before snapping out of it with a slight shake of her head. “Are you alright?”</p>
<p>Eddie laughs at the concern in her voice. This doesn’t seem to calm Beverly’s nerves in the slightest, but it’s not manic like Bev was probably expecting. She feels the previous weight in her chest disappearing with each breath of laughter, leaving her soon with only a smile.</p>
<p>“I’m great, Bev. Just— so good,” Eddie tells her as she begins running her fingers through the top of her hair, catching slightly in the remaining curls of the longest sections.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to insult you by asking again and assuming that you don’t know if you’re okay or not, but I do need to put it out there that when someone cuts off all of their previously long hair in their bathroom, it doesn’t say the best things about their mental state,” Bev tells her carefully.</p>
<p>“Hmm, you would know,” Eddie laughs.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>After years of being told that women must keep their hair long, Edythe "Eddie" Kaspbrak gets fed up and decides to chop it off herself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Edythe Kaspbrak Gets a Haircut</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I promised myself the next thing I would write and post would be something more popular that would actually get some attention bc I'm tired of my fics flopping but HERE WE ARE I GUESS. I'm a gay man and fem!reddie has taken over my mind and soul recently I love those funky lil lesbians.<br/>Also YES, I did name fem!Eddie after fem!Edward (Edythe) Cullen and there is NOTHING you can do about it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She can feel her joints creaking with how strongly her hands grip the edge of the porcelain sink. Her knuckles are turning white, but she doesn’t let go. She takes a deep breath, her lungs wheezing in a way that shouldn’t at all be comforting but strangely is. Her hair floats down across her arms, past the sink, and just barely reaches the handles to the cabinet that lies beneath. It’s long. Too long.</p>
<p>When she looks into the mirror, all she can see is hair. It’s creased just around her ears from years of wearing it in a tight bun nearly all of the time. There is no part in her hair, it simply flows where it wants to. Down her back, around her shoulders, in her face, and between her eyelashes. She tries to ignore the look on her face: one that her therapist would call manic but she would call <em>fed up. </em></p>
<p>It doesn’t happen like in the movies. She doesn’t pick up the scissors and cut off a chunk of hair in one manic flourish. She’s not breathing heavily in anger and slashing at her hair like it’s a man who has wronged her. Her right hand comes off the sink slowly, picking up the scissors and savoring the rubbery handhold and the weight against her palm. She takes her time in separating out a chunk of hair from the front. A perfect triangle, the way she’s seen so many people cut their bangs. Her hand doesn’t shake as she brings the open scissors up to the thick bundle of hair, but her lungs quake with anxiety all the same. She forces the blades closed slowly. So slowly, in fact, that the first hairs don’t quite catch. She manages to push the bundle of hair closer to the center of the blades before she can hear the loud <em>sniiiiiip </em>that fills the silent bathroom, blocking out the staccato beating of her heart. She can almost feel each individual hair being freed of its weight. Her scalp sings with the loss, floating into the air above her giving her a feeling that is almost like the kind of high she used to get from the painkillers. It’s addicting, and before she has time to see the damage she has caused, she’s grabbing another chunk of hair and cutting that one too.</p>
<p>It’s methodical, the way that Eddie cuts her hair. Far from the crazed, anger-filled snips, she has seen so many times in movies. Her eyes are laser-focused on each individual section of hair, and when she can’t see the sections in the back, she closes her eyes and allows her other senses to take over. It’s messy and choppy, but the hair that tickles her ankles is disturbingly calming. She mourns the loss of the hair, not because it’s gone, but because that means she’ll have to stop eventually. She’ll run out of hair. Despite how much of it there seems to be, she does, eventually, run out of hair.</p>
<p>The fringe just barely brushes against her eyebrows, and the sides show off the tiny elf hears Richie has taken to teasing if only to disguise her love for them. The left side is slightly longer than the right, a downfall of being right-handed, and she can see each straight-lined section that came from the blunt kitchen scissors. It’s ugly. Her hair has always had a bit of a natural wave, but it’s almost gone now. Some sections of her hair look almost straight, and it’s not enough to hide the bad job. There are tufts of hair hanging across her shoulders, and she’s sure if she brushed her hand across the nape of her neck she could find a few strands hanging on to her scalp for dear life, afraid of being ripped out in agitation. Her hair is so ugly and it frames her face in a way that isn’t necessarily bad but isn’t too great either. Now, she knows, there is nothing to hide the swollen pink scar that lines her cheek.</p>
<p>Eddie has never loved the way she looked more than she does now.</p>
<p>She wouldn’t dare leave the house to be seen like this and she knows that she needs to get it fixed before she goes back into work on Monday, but she can’t help but grin at her reflection. She moves her head experimentally, delighting in the way it moves so <em>freely </em>without the weight of her hair pulling down on it. Her scalp sings to her for the absence of a bun stretching her face out. The forehead wrinkles Richie loves so much are hidden by the fringe, but her face feels heavier in a way as if she has finally let go of the last bit of tension in it, allowing it to hang freely with the comfort of age.</p>
<p>Her eyes close blissfully as she runs her hands across her head, not really threading her fingers through her hair as much as it is rubbing the strands atop her scalp. For once, her fingers don’t find themselves tangled in the back. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.</p>
<p>She needs to share it with someone.</p>
<p>“Hey Eddie, give me like two seconds,” Bev says the second she picks up the call. From where Eddie has the iPhone leaned up against the mirror, she can see the bottom of Beverly’s chin and up her nose, haloed by her wild red hair. She can hear shuffling, and soon the blank white of the ceiling is replaced by the orange hue of the Nebraska dusk. “Sorry about that, I was— Woah.”</p>
<p>“Hey, Bev,” Eddie greets, a rare peaceful smile gracing her face.</p>
<p>“Your hair,” Bev says reverently before snapping out of it with a slight shake of her head. “Are you alright?”</p>
<p>Eddie laughs at the concern in her voice. This doesn’t seem to calm Beverly’s nerves in the slightest, but it’s not manic like Bev was probably expecting. She feels the previous weight in her chest disappearing with each breath of laughter, leaving her soon with only a smile.</p>
<p>“I’m great, Bev. Just— so good,” Eddie tells her as she begins running her fingers through the top of her hair, catching slightly in the remaining curls of the longest sections.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to insult you by asking again and assuming that you don’t know if you’re okay or not, but I do need to put it out there that when someone cuts off all of their previously long hair in their bathroom, it doesn’t say the best things about their mental state,” Bev tells her carefully.</p>
<p>“Hmm, you would know,” Eddie laughs. “I’m fine, Bev, really. I just— it needed to happen. I know it’s a mess right now and it certainly needs a few touch-ups, but I’m happy with it.”</p>
<p>“If you’re sure,” Beverly says. “It looks great. I mean, it <em>doesn’t. </em>It’s clearly an amateur job, but I think you can pull off short hair really well, Eds.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Eddie says, nearly choking on her words. She didn’t call Bev for her approval, she just needed to share it with someone before she inevitably had to go out and face Richie, who had never quite learned to keep her opinions to herself. But hearing Bev compliment her like that means the world to Eddie.</p>
<p>“Of course, Eddie. Sometimes I wish I could go back to having short hair, but it just doesn't compliment my old face anymore,” she sighs.</p>
<p>“Actually, that’s kind of the reason I called,” Eddie says.</p>
<p>“Oh no— you did this to yourself. I’m not cutting mine too to make you feel better Eds. It doesn’t matter <em>how </em>much I love you,” Beverly tells her, looking stern and serious aside from the slight upturn of her lips.</p>
<p>“No,” Eddie says, “It’s not that. I just thought, well you’ve done this before and it looked great on you when we were kids. So how the hell do I fix this?”</p>
<p>Beverly lets out a quick laugh before covering her mouth with her hand. It doesn’t do much since Eddie can still hear the giggles and see the ways the crow's feet bunch around her eyes. It fills her with a sense of rage and panic, nearly causing another explosion of word vomit (an Eddie-splosion as Richie once called it) that she has become so known for.</p>
<p>“Eddie,” Bev says patronizingly, “I can’t— I have no idea how to help you. If I was there… maybe I could try to fix it, but I work in fashion, not hair.”</p>
<p>“Well, yeah, but— you’ve done this before! You cut your own hair back during <em>that </em>summer and kept trimming it yourself before you left!” Eddie rants. “I can’t go out looking like this, Beverly! It’s a mess! God forbid anyone at work sees me like this, they’ll think it’s some sort of near-death experience midlife crisis! And you <em>know </em>Richie is going to have a few things to say—”</p>
<p>“My hair was curly!” Beverly cuts Eddie off, as all the Losers have learned to do when she starts ranting with no end in sight. “I didn’t have to worry about it looking bad because it was so curly that you couldn’t even tell. Mine didn’t straighten out like yours did when I cut it, it just got <em>curlier. </em>And besides, I was 13! I’m sure if we looked back at pictures now it will look so much worse than we remember it being.”</p>
<p>Beverly has a point, but Eddie will be <em>damned </em>before she ever admits that. She crosses her arms and glares at Beverly through the phone. But she can’t help but stare at herself, confined in that tiny box in the corner of the screen. Without her hair pulled tightly back, exposing every bit of her face, she looks less intimidating and almost… soft. Looking intimidating and striking fear into the hearts of the men she works with is something Eddie had always <em>thrived </em>on, and she’d never expected the loss of that would make her feel so… happy? No, not happy. More like… comfortable. The short hair manages to sharpen the point of her angular chin, but it softens her sharp, high cheekbones and draws attention to her wide doe-eyes. She looks pretty in a way that’s far from both her mother’s and Myron’s idea of beauty. She just can’t force her eyes back onto Beverly, utterly obsessed with looking at herself. She could just look up and see herself in the mirror, but there's something different about seeing herself so tiny on the phone screen. There, she can’t see the details of her face or the intricacies of her expression. There, she doesn't see Edythe Kaspbrak, she just sees Eddie.</p>
<p>“Listen, Mike has been keeping her hair short since we were kids, why don’t you ask her?” Beverly offers. Eddie splutters, finally tearing her vision away from herself to look at Beverly with an expression that she usually reserves for Richie. <em>Are you stupid? </em></p>
<p>“I can’t just ask Mike, she’s black!” Eddie exclaims, causing Beverly’s eyes to widen. She lets out a small, laughing scoff before chiding Eddie.</p>
<p>“Woah, racist!” she teases, expression open and laughing. Her eyes, however, look a tad worried, as if she’s afraid that Eddie is secretly bigotted. She has that kind of hesitance that they all have sometimes when talking to each other. The kind that comes from 27 years of separation, and realizing that sometimes, they don’t know each other as well as they thought.</p>
<p>“It’s not racist, Beverly. Mike is black, his hair is different from mine. If your hair was too curly for you to give me advice, what makes you think <em>Mike’s </em>advice would be any better? She doesn’t know what to do with white hair any more than I know what to do with black hair!” Eddie tells her, explaining it with a huff. There’s a bit of an edge to her voice, but her rant is ultimately fond, far from the explosive edge she keeps in her tone when she’s dealing with all those dipshits at work.</p>
<p>“Shit, I didn’t even think about that... I’m out of ideas here, babes, I think you’re just gonna have to call in an emergency appointment at a salon,” Bev says.</p>
<p>Eddie groans. She knew that, yeah, she would probably have to call in an appointment to get it fixed, but she was seriously trying to avoid that. She doesn’t <em>want </em>to go to a salon, where the girls will either judge her and make fun of her behind her back or tell her how stupid it was to her face. Like, yeah, she gets it. Cutting her own hair in her bathroom probably <em>wasn’t </em>the best idea, but she really couldn’t wait another second with it.</p>
<p>“Hey, why don’t you ask Richie? I set her up with a few of my stylist friends a few weeks ago for the red carpet she was on, I’m sure she could pull a few strings and call in a favor for you. She could even make it a house call, so you don’t have to leave the house and let the world see you like this,” Beverly says. She only snickers a little bit in that last sentence and despite how much she wants to fight it, Eddie lets it go.</p>
<p>“Yeah, that would require <em>showing </em>Richie,” Eddie deadpans.</p>
<p>Beverly gasps, letting out an incredulous laugh. “Richie doesn’t know?” she exclaims.</p>
<p>“No, Richie doesn’t know! It’s not like I planned this! And I just <em>know </em>she’s gonna laugh at me so I’d like to delay the big reveal for as long as possible, thanks,” Eddie snips. Beverly’s expression softens and it immediately puts Eddie on edge.</p>
<p>“Richie won’t laugh,” she tells Eddie, and disgustingly enough, Eddie can tell that Bev actually <em>believes </em>that.</p>
<p>“You don’t live with Richie,” Eddie replies. “She will <em>absolutely </em>laugh. It’s what she does! She laughs and she makes all these shitty jokes <em>specifically </em>to get under my skin because she has some sort of weird sixth sense for my weak points!”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but she does that because she loves you,” Bev says. <em>He just pulled on your pigtails because he liked you</em>, Eddie hears in her head, wishing to call Beverly out on that toxic bullshit. “She knows your limits, Eddie, and she wouldn’t joke about something if she <em>actually </em>knew it would hurt you. And besides, I think she’ll be too busy gawking to say <em>anything. </em>You look really hot like this, Eds.”</p>
<p>“Yeah fucking right,” Eddie scoffs, crossing her arms and looking away from her phone to hide the blush.</p>
<p>“Go show Richie,” Beverly demands, “And then go call a <em>professional. </em>As hot as you look like this, that hair is a fucking travesty right now and I will <em>not </em>allow myself to be friends with someone so… <em>disheveled.” </em>Beverly laughs at her own teasing. Her eyes are too light and her smile too silly for it to be anything <em>but </em>a joke.</p>
<p>“Then why the fuck are you friend with Richie?” Eddie claps back, a proud grin overtaking her face. Not for the first time she hears Richie in her head, bemoaning Eddie for being the funny one in their relationship when <em>Richie </em>is the professional comedian.</p>
<p>“Stop bullying your girlfriend and go show her!” Beverly cries, throwing her one hand up, the one not holding the phone, in faux exasperation.</p>
<p>“Fine.”</p>
<p>“I love you,” Beverly sings.</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, I love you too, I’ll talk to you soon. Give Ben my love as well.”</p>
<p>“No can do, Eddie. I’m afraid you’re just too hot now, I can’t have you stealing my wife,” Beverly tells her seriously. Eddie scoffs, <em>as if. </em>The only person on the planet more obviously in love with her girlfriend than Rachel Tozier is Bernice Hanscom.</p>
<p>“Oh shut up,” Eddie groans before grabbing the phone and ending the call. Just before she hits the end button, however, she can see the content smile on her face. As much as she loves Beverly and trusts her, Eddie doesn’t quite care about Beverly’s opinion as much as she does Richie’s. Of course, if Beverly told her it looked bad she wouldn’t have been happy, but it wouldn’t have quite upset her like it would if Richie were the one saying it. After all, Richie never really shut up about how much she loved Eddie’s long hair, even going so far as to forcibly take it out of its bun the second Eddie gets home from work.</p>
<p>Fuck, she’s so screwed. Myron had always wanted Eddie to keep her hair long too, though for different reasons. He agreed with Eddie’s mom that women should have long hair and told Eddie to her face that he hated her bob when they first met. And though she has been working through her issues with her past marriage and her mother, she still hasn’t quite gotten over the idea that she needs to please Richie. It’s her hair, and Eddie knows that Richie would never tell her what she can and can’t do with her body, but that doesn’t mean she ever wants Richie to look at her like she’s less attractive than she used to be.</p>
<p>But well, Richie <em>isn’t </em>Myron, and she’s certainly not Sonia. Eddie is past all that, or at least she’s trying to be. She is her own person. She isn’t <em>Richie’s </em>Eddie in the same way she wasn’t <em>Myron’s </em>Edythe. It’s her body and her hair, and she can do whatever she damn well pleases with it. It’s that thought and that thought only that allows her to swipe her remaining hair off her person and onto the floor before exiting the bathroom in search of a broom.</p>
<p>She knows Richie will be exactly where she left her, sitting on the couch and pretending to write new jokes while she mindlessly scrolls through Twitter, so that’s where she heads first. She also knows that there is a broom stored in the hall closet next to the bathroom, but Richie still hasn’t quite gotten the hang of putting things back where they belong, so it wouldn’t hurt to ask if she knows where it's at. Just in case.</p>
<p>“Hey, Eds, I just finished this new bit and—” Richie says, typing simultaneously. She stops, however, when she looks up and sees Eddie standing just outside the hallway, in full view of the spacious living room.</p>
<p>“Have you seen the broom?” Eddie asks.</p>
<p>“Hah,” Richie says intelligently. Her mouth is wide open and she stares at Eddie like she’s never seen her before. It puts Eddie on edge.</p>
<p>“I said, <em>have you seen the fucking broom?” </em>Edie repeats herself, a clearly defensive edge to her tone. This causes Richie to snap out of it, comically shaking her head like some sort of cartoon.</p>
<p>“Uh, closet?” she responds. “What happened to—”</p>
<p>“Don’t,” Eddie interrupts her.</p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p>“No. I don’t want to hear it,” she repeats, hastily making her exit back towards the hall closet that she <em>knew </em>the broom was in.</p>
<p>“Wait, Eddie!” Richie calls, but Eddie doesn’t stop. She grabs the closet and shuts the door with a slight slam before locking herself back up in the bathroom again. There aren’t many locks of hair that can’t just be picked up with her hands, so she starts gathering all the hair at once. She knew that it was long when it was on her head, reaching just below her mid-back, but seeing it now gives her a whole new perspective. She could probably send it off somewhere for it to be made into a wig, but the thought of that makes Eddie want to reach for an inhaler that isn’t there. Who would want to wear someone else’s hair? Besides, she’s pretty sure she once heard Mike talking about how hair is pretty powerful in other cultures and can be used against a person in various types of spells. She doesn't know if she believes in witchcraft or whatnot, but she has experienced enough paranormal bullshit in her life to err on the side of caution. Instead of throwing it away, or god forbid <em>saving </em>it to give to someone else, she bundles it up and flushes it down the toilet. It takes a few tries, there is a lot of hair, but soon she has gotten rid of all of the evidence. Watching the hair swirl and go down the drain is therapeutic, even if she can hear the shouts of millions of Californians inside her head screaming about how <em>we’re in a drought! </em></p>
<p>She leaves the bathroom nearly immediately after she has finished. Despite her rigorous cleaning regiment, the bathroom is a dirty disgusting place that no amount of exposure therapy can help with. She doesn’t like to spend more time in the bathroom than she has to, going so far as to set up a vanity in her and Richie’s shared bedroom for putting her makeup on before work. But leaving the bathroom opens her up to Richie.</p>
<p>She can hear the clacking of Richie’s laptop keys echoing throughout the living room, and as much as Eddie wants to go and hide out in the bedroom or one of the offices, there isn’t much to do there. Besides, she needs to get dinner ready. It’s her turn to cook tonight.</p>
<p>“Eddie!” Richie calls the second Eddie shows her face in the living room once more. She looks like she’s going to say something, but Eddie shuts that down.</p>
<p>“Don’t say anything.”</p>
<p>“Aw, come on, Eds—”</p>
<p>“I said no, Richie. I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to hear anything about it.”</p>
<p>Richie opens her mouth again but shuts it the second Eddie’s eyebrow raises. She looks troubled in the way she always does whenever she can’t speak her mind. Richie has never been too good at holding back.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” she asks softly. It catches Eddie off guard. She sounds worried, and Eddie feels the briefest flash of regret. Ever since they got together, Richie has been careful about not showing her worry for Eddie lest she feels smothered. She knows that years of abuse from both her mother and ex-husband caused issues when it comes to worry, but the fact that Richie is openly showing just that right now makes Eddie feel anything but smothered.</p>
<p>“I’m fine, Rach. I promise. I just don’t want to talk about it, okay?”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Richie responds immediately, “But—”</p>
<p>“Beep beep, Rachel,” Eddie groans, finally walking through the living room and into the kitchen where she can ignore Richie. She gets through making their entire dinner without any interruption. It would be odd, Richie not coming in to bother Eddie while she cooks, but she really has been dedicating herself to perfecting her new routine. It’ll be her first since coming out and Eddie knows just how important it is to her, so she doesn't spend much of her time worrying that she upset Richie by refusing to talk about her new haircut. Or worse, that Richie didn’t want to come see Eddie because she <em>hated </em>the new haircut. She absolutely doesn't spiral, she <em>doesn’t. </em></p>
<p>“Richie, dinner!” she calls as she plates the simple chicken and rice. She takes it over to the small kitchen island for the two of them to eat at. Before Eddie moved in, Richie had been the type to take her dinner in the living room, and though Eddie does permit that from time to time, she is a firm believer that meals should be eaten at the table.</p>
<p>Richie doesn’t mind though, Eddie knows that sitting down together to eat and talk about their days is probably Richie’s favorite part of the day. It’s sweet, but right now Eddie can’t look forward to it.</p>
<p>Fortunately, however, Richie doesn’t bring up the topic once throughout dinner. Instead, she talks about her new set and all the other exciting things that have been happening in her life. From the dog she saw in the park while she was trying to get over writer's block to the funny new meme she saw on twitter, Eddie is content to let her guide the entire conversation. Usually, Eddie would have her fair share of things to say, but every time she watches Richie take a glance at her choppy hair, she seems to lose all of her words. And well, though she doesn’t bring it up, Richie ends up looking at Eddie’s hair <em>a lot</em> with an expression that Eddie so desperately wishes she could read. It’s one of the worst things about having lost 27 years with her best friends. She has forgotten how to read them like she used to, and their usual expressions look so much different on their forty-year-old faces. She’s gotten better with Richie since she lives with her and all, but for the life of her, she can’t place this one.</p>
<p>“So, anyway, I was sitting there writing this amazing bit about that one time Stan and Ben tried to set me up with Allen Cohen when I got brain blasted by at least 15 different memories at once,” Richie explains.</p>
<p>“You say that like it’s a <em>bad </em>thing,” Eddie says.</p>
<p>“Well, yeah! Here I am trying to be funny when I’m forcibly sucked onto the nostalgia train and being forced to ride through some of the most embarrassing shit of my life, Eds! I know that 27 years of forgetting sucked, but when you’re forced to remember all the cringey phases you went through in high school, you won’t be so happy about it either!” Richie nearly spits out her food with the force of how she talks, allowing herself to get fired up at her apparent embarrassment.</p>
<p>“You did have some pretty cringey phases,” Eddie admits, causing Richie to groan into her hands. “Your punk phase was pretty hot, but the tomboy phase that came after it was not your best look.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t my <em>tomboy </em>phase, Eds, it was my <em>I just realized that I am a lesbian and I thought all lesbians were required to have short hair </em>phase.”</p>
<p>Richie doesn’t seem to register exactly what she just said until Eddie freezes ever so slightly. Her gaze darts to Eddie’s forehead and quickly scatters around the rest of her hair. Eddie’s eyes squint at Richie as if to dare her to say something, but Richie isn’t looking at Eddie’s eyes right now.</p>
<p>But still, she doesn’t say anything.</p>
<p>Richie doesn’t bring it up either when they sit down to watch a movie together after they’ve finished and cleaned their plates. Though Eddie tenses up as he watches Amy Dunne chop her hair off in the bathroom in Gone Girl, Richie doesn’t crack a single joke, despite her previous tendency to talk over entire movies.</p>
<p>Eddie would be lying if she said she paid attention to much of the movie after that. Though she doesn’t say anything during <em>that </em>scene, Richie does shift ever closer to Eddie and lays her head against Eddie’s shoulder. Previously, it would have been uncomfortable for Eddie, what with the long hair that always seemed to get in the way mixed with Richie's disdain for her keeping it up. But now, she doesn’t need to worry about Richie accidentally tugging on it or, god forbid, <em>sitting on it. </em>All that’s left is for her girlfriend to cuddle up to her, which, in Eddie’s mind, makes it well worth the eventual embarrassing salon trip.</p>
<p>She does mourn the loss of Richie’s fingers skating across her scalp, though. Richie has always had trouble keeping still during anything and, even in childhood, had taken to burying her hands in the scalp of whoever was closest. But it seems Richie thought that Eddie’s earlier warnings had extended to touches, too. Eddie isn’t really sure how to feel about that.</p>
<p>Richie still doesn’t say anything as they get ready for bed together, either. They each take quick showers, one brushing their teeth and doing their usual nighttime routine while the other bathes. Sharing the bathroom like this is something that Eddie has only recently come around to, but it brings a sense of normalcy that she has been waiting for. Like this, Richie can’t stare at her hair or lack thereof, and they can converse like normal people. As she rubs her various face creams and moisturizers into her face, she listens to Richie serenading Eddie with an ever-changing song selection. Her voice is rough and cracks every now and then, with no chance of <em>ever </em>becoming a professional singer, but Eddie can’t help but smile. It’s silly and stupid and nothing like her nights with Myron ever were. The crushing weight of Richie’s potential disappointment in her hair choice has temporarily left her body, leaving her feeling as free and floaty as the second she cut the hair off in the first place.</p>
<p>The second Richie steps out of the shower with her hair dripping wet and towel thrust out towards Eddie, though, is the second she freezes.</p>
<p>How could she have forgotten? As she reaches for the towel, plopping it atop Richie’s head, she wonders just how she could have overlooked this one simple aspect of their relationship?</p>
<p>Richie has always <em>loved </em>Eddie’s hair, and when Eddie started insisting Richie let her take care of her curls before they go to bed, Richie only agreed if she could do the same for Eddie. Eddie was just tired of the way Richie would rub her hair violently with a towel and sleep on the mess every night. She was tired of seeing Richie wake up with a tangled mess of hair, only to end up with a hairball the size of her fist the next morning after <em>brushing </em>it. Despite having curly hair her whole life, she’d never learned to take care of it and Eddie couldn’t stand that. But what once was an act born of irritation, became a way for both of them to decompress after a long day and just <em>take care of each other. </em>But now, Eddie has taken that away from Richie. She can’t help the guilt that fills her body as she pats dry Richie’s hair, making sure not to rub it and make it frizzier than normal.</p>
<p>Richie reaches out to grab Eddie’s wrists, forcing the towel off her head and around her shoulders instead. She looks down at Eddie, her hair wild and still damp, small drops falling off her baby hairs and into her face. She looks at Eddie with the same soft expressions she usually gets late at night when Eddie curls into her sleepily.</p>
<p>“Can I say something?” she asks. Eddie holds her breath and readies her defense. She nods once, searching Richie’s eyes desperately for some sort of reassurance that never comes.</p>
<p>Richie guides her hands from Eddie’s wrists and up her arms. Slowly, she makes her way to Eddie’s neck and finally into her hair. She runs her hands across the short hairs and through the longer ones on top with a sort of reverence on her face that has Eddie closing her eyes. The top is still slightly damp from her shower, but gone are the days where her hair would take hours to dry. The sides have already lost all of their moisture.</p>
<p>“You’re beautiful,” Richie whispers.</p>
<p>Eddie snaps her eyes open, gripping the towel around Richie’s neck even harder than before. Richie lets her gaze travel from Eddie’s hair to her eyes languidly smiling blindingly with those goofy buck teeth Eddie loves as she does so.</p>
<p>“It’s a little messy, but you look beautiful like this, Eds.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?” Eddie croaks.</p>
<p>“Of course!” Richie says with conviction. “I loved your hair, Eddie, but I love you even more. And this? This looks good on you. I could never pull something like this off, my face is too round, but you look… god, you look <em>hot</em>.”</p>
<p>Finally, Eddie breaks. A few giggles are ripped from her throat, and soon she’s hiding her face into Richie’s bare neck, trying to choke down the laughter that is being punched from her lungs.</p>
<p>“Ugh, why can’t you laugh like this when I say something actually funny?” Richie fake groans. Her hands wrap around Eddie’s waist and hold her there in a tight embrace even as she complains.</p>
<p>“I’ll laugh when you actually say something funny,” Eddie replies, pulling away to look at Richie again.</p>
<p>“You wound me, Eds.”</p>
<p>“Everyone knows I’m the funny one in this relationship, Trashmouth,” Eddie tells her, throwing the towel to the ground and wrapping her arms around Richie’s neck.</p>
<p>“Nope. Nuh-uh,” Richie responds, resting her hands on Eddie’s waist. “That’s not fair at all, Spaghetti. You don’t get to be the hot one <em>and </em>the funny one.”</p>
<p>“And who says you’re not the hot one?” Eddie asks.</p>
<p>“Uh, literally anyone who has eyes. I mean, maybe before your haircut it was a 50/50 shot, but with this hair? Eds, you’re a smoke show. Bow Chicka Wow Wow,” Richie sings, being as dramatic as usual. Eddie’s honestly surprised she hasn’t put on a voice yet.</p>
<p>“I don’t know, Rach, from where I’m standing, you’re plenty hot all on your own,” Eddie replies, making sure to look down towards Richie’s still naked body.</p>
<p>“Oh yeah?” Richie asks, pulling back and striking a ridiculous pose in front of her girlfriend. It shows off her pudgy tummy and the stretch marks decorating her thighs and hips. Thick, coarse hair is starting to grow back on her upper thighs and her happy trail, and it honestly looks like she hasn’t groomed her pubic hair in awhile. The Eddie of last year, before Derry, might have thought that was disgusting and unhygienic. Eddie now, however, thinks Richie is the most beautiful person she has ever seen.</p>
<p>“Mhmm,” Eddie hums, walking towards Richie again to pull her into an embrace.</p>
<p>“Then why don’t you take this sexy piece of ass to bed then, Ms. Kaspbrak?” Richie asks coyly, leaning into Eddie’s space and nearly letting their lips touch.</p>
<p>“Oh that I can do,” Eddie smiles, before pulling away and grabbing Richie’s hand to pull her out of their bathroom and into their shared bedroom.</p>
<p>They don’t manage to get very far. The second they both lay down in bed they realize they’re much more exhausted than they thought. Eddie had the day off, but apparently spending your whole day worrying about something is quite laborious, and Richie had been working on her set <em>all day. </em>They spend some time making out sloppily, not caring to take it any further before Eddie can feel her eyes start to droop. Soon, the lights come off and Eddie buries herself in the blankets.</p>
<p>“Hey Eds,” Richie whispers, turning on her side to face Eddie in the darkness.</p>
<p>“Hm?” Eddie hums back, turning to face Richie as well but not quite opening her eyes.</p>
<p>“I really do love it,” Richie tells her, reaching out to run her fingers through Eddie’s hair. “But I need you to know that… even if I didn’t like it that wouldn’t matter, yeah? It’s your hair, Eds, and I don’t want you to ever feel guilty or… I don’t know— worried that I might not like it. I’m going to like it no matter what because it’s you that I love<em>. </em>Not your hair and not… whatever else.”</p>
<p>Eddie doesn’t open her eyes at all for fear that the tears might spill out. With a shaky sigh, she scoots forward to bury her face in Richie’s bare chest. She wraps her arms around her girlfriend and tangles their legs together.</p>
<p>“I love you,” she says, allowing her voice to crack, sharing vulnerability with the only person on the planet she has ever felt comfortable doing that with.</p>
<p>“I love you too, Eddie. No matter what,” Richie replies, burying her face into what’s left of Eddie’s hair. They both allow themselves to finally start drifting off into sleep.</p>
<p>Just as Eddie thinks she’s on the brink of falling, Richie starts to speak. Eddie’s too tired and too close to sleep that she can’t bring her mouth to move and respond, but she files Richie’s words away and hopes to remember them in the morning. There’s no way she’s letting Richie get away with <em>that. </em></p>
<p>“But you really need to go to a salon, you’re not allowed to take my title as the sloppy bitch in this relationship.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tumblr: onierokinetic<br/>come talk to me about It. i love the losers club more than life itself.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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